otwithstanding, then, the extreme lowness of the temperature, the
little population found that they were able to move about in the open
air with perfect immunity. The governor general made it his special care
to see that his people were all well fed and warmly clad. Food was
both wholesome and abundant, and besides the furs brought from the
_Dobryna's_ stores, fresh skins could very easily be procured and
made up into wearing apparel. A daily course of out-door exercise was
enforced upon everyone; not even Pablo and Nina were exempted from the
general rule; the two children, muffled up in furs, looking like little
Esquimeaux, skated along together, Pablo ever at his companion's
side, ready to give her a helping hand whenever she was weary with her
exertions.

After his interview with the newly arrived astronomer, Isaac Hakkabut
slunk back again to his tartan. A change had come over his ideas; he
could no longer resist the conviction that he was indeed millions and
millions of miles away from the earth, where he had carried on so varied
and remunerative a traffic. It might be imagined that this realization
of his true position would have led him to a better mind, and that,
in some degree at least, he would have been induced to regard the few
fellow-creatures with whom his lot had been so strangely cast, otherwise
than as mere instruments to be turned to his own personal and pecuniary
advantage; but no--the desire of gain was too thoroughly ingrained into
his hard nature ever to be eradicated, and secure in his knowledge that
he was under the protection of a French officer, who, except under the
most urgent necessity, would not permit him to be molested in retaining
his property, he determined to wait for some emergency to arise which
should enable him to use his present situation for his own profit.

On the one hand, the Jew took it into account that although the chances
of returning to the earth might be remote, yet from what he had heard
from the professor he could not believe that they were improbable; on
the other, he knew that a considerable sum of money, in English and
Russian coinage, was in the possession of various members of the little
colony, and this, although valueless now, would be worth as much as ever
if the proper condition of things should be restored; accordingly, he
set his heart on getting all the monetary wealth of Gallia into his
possession, and to do this he must sell his goods. But he would not